ESL Madness

I love the idea of using a game of charades to make English learning fun for young kids. But sometimes it can be difficult to incorporate the game into a structured class.

I was introduced to this method of charades last week by a patient and creative 3rd grade teacher here in Japan. Here’s the magic:

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Materials: set of large flashcards, chairs, stopwatch / timer
Time: 10-15 min.Vocabulary: Sports, actions, animals… anything you can portray with action.

Split the class into 3 groups, A / B / C.

Team A will be split into two = the guesser and the actors.

Place two small lines of chairs opposite of, and facing each other, in the front of the room.
Team A’s guessers sit on one side, Team A’s actors sit on the other.
Team B and C sit in the remaining chairs, facing the front, as an audience.

The JTE stands behind Team A guessers with the flashcards.
The ALT stands at the blackboard behind the actors, and keeps score and starts/stops the timer.

When the class chants “ready, GO!”, the JTE turns over the first flashcard and shows it to the actors. (The guessers can’t see it because the JTE is behind them.) The first actor comes forward and acts out the gesture. When anyone from the guessing side yells the correct word with pronunciation, the ALT records one point for Team A on the board. Immediately, the JTE shows the next card, and the next actor comes forward to perform the gesture. Continue until the timer beeps at 1 MINUTE.

Have the teams rotate so that Team B is now at the front, split into guessers and actors, and Teams A & C are the audience.

Play so that each team goes twice, the guessers and actors rotating so everyone gets a chance at both roles. Tally the points at the end and congratulate everyone on how many English words their team yelled!